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A Plane

A plane carrying tourists to view Mount Everest crashed while attempting to land in Nepal on Sunday, killing all 19 people on board, including two U.S. citizens, officials said.

The turboprop plane belonging to Buddha Air was carrying 13 foreign tourists, three Nepalese passengers and three crew members when it crashed in Bisankunarayan village, just a few miles south of the capital, Katmandu.

An eyewitness, Haribol Poudel, told Avenues Television that the plane had hit the roof of a house in the village and disintegrated into several pieces. No casualties were reported on the ground.

Poudel said it was foggy, and that visibility was very low in the mountainous area.

The Beechcraft 1900D plane — manufactured by Raytheon Aircraft, now known as Hawker Beechcraft — had taken the passengers to view Mount Everest and other high peaks and was returning to Katmandu.

The "mountain flight" takes tourists over the Everest region, and passengers can view some of the world's highest peaks from the airplane windows.

The last plane crash in Nepal was in December last year, when a Twin Otter aircraft hit the Himalayan foothills of remote east Nepal, killing all 22 people onboard.

Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountain peaks, including Mount Everest.

Tens of thousands of hikers and foreign tourists go to Mount Everest and other trekking routes to see the lofty Himalayan peaks every year.

Those who cannot hike the rugged hilly trails to the mountains use mountain flights operated by different airlines to see the Himalayas.

Tourism, a key source of earning for impoverished Nepal, accounts for nearly four percent of the gross domestic product and employs tens of thousands of people, among the poorest in the world.